


Expectancy

by Almighty_Hat



Category: Transformers (Bay Movies)
Genre: Gen, Mayfly-December Friendship, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-17
Updated: 2007-07-17
Packaged: 2017-12-29 16:25:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1007545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Almighty_Hat/pseuds/Almighty_Hat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not easy, loving them, but we do it because we can't do anything else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Expectancy

The day Mojo got his cast taken off, Bumblebee had to ask a few questions.

He'd done a little bit of research about Chihuahuas, after all, just out of curiosity-- Sam seemed so fond of the little canid, after all, and Bumblebee was curious.

... And some of the questions had been weighing on his processors.

"Sam?"

"Yeah?" Sam turned Mojo loose in the yard, and Mojo, for his part, skittered off as though nothing impressive had happened to him that day.

"How old is Mojo?"

"... Lemme think," was Sam's first answer, as he hopped up onto Bumblebee's hood. "Mom got him when I was... ten or eleven... So he's six or seven years old now. How come?"

"And you are seventeen."

"Well, it's easier to remember my own age."

The average lifespan of a chihuahua, Bumblebee had discovered (Wikipedia was a fascinating source of information, and even if it wasn't entirely trustworthy, it at least had multiple sources listed), was between eight and eighteen years, based on health and genetics alone.

"You told Ironhide that you love chihuahuas."

"... I did? Ohh, no, right, when Mojo peed on him. Well, I meant humans. Humans love chihuahuas. As a concept, you know. I love Mojo, he's our dog, but it's not like I'm gonna start collecting Chihuahuas or something."

The average life expectancy of an human American male fell between seventy-two and eighty-one years, significantly higher than the life expectancy of a chihuahua. "How do you do it?" Bumblebee usually kept his voice modulated fairly quiet when he was in his alt mode, but at that question, it was quieter still.

"... I... what, love a dog?"

"Mojo will live a fraction as long as you will; he's already lived almost half of the maximum average lifetime for a chihuahua. How can you love him without being sad that he won't live as long as you will?"

"... Oh." Sam hesitated, and Bumblebee was sure he wasn't supposed to ask questions like that. "Well, you just don't think about it," Sam concluded at last. "Humans keep a lot of things as pets, and pretty much only... like, parrots and turtles-- tortoises, I mean, I think-- can outlive us. Maybe elephants, but that's not really a common pet. You just... you just love 'em while they're here, for what they bring you while you've got them. Pets, you know, they... everything they've got, they get from us. They rely on us, they need us. And they love _us--_ they don't think about how long they're gonna live, they don't know. They just love us, and need us to take care of them-- so we take care of them, and we love them back." Sam frowned and rubbed at the back of his neck. "I don't think I'm explaining it right."

"I understood," Bumblebee assured him. "Will you be sad when Mojo dies?"

"... Yeah, of course I will. He's my dog-- my family's dog-- and I love him. That's... part of loving somebody, even if they're a dog. It... it won't be the end of the world or anything, and good memories of him should help, but... yeah, I'll be sad."

"Thank you for explaining to me, Sam."

"No problem." Sam settled back against Bumblebee's windshield, a posture that Bumblebee had really started to like. "Guess you didn't have pets back on Cybertron?"

... They had, actually, in their fashion, turbofoxes and things, but Bumblebee shaded the truth. "Not like you do here."

"Guess that makes sense."

Mojo was six years old, and would live for another three-to-twelve years, on average (and if all went well).

Sam was seventeen years old, and would live for another fifty-five to sixty-one years, on average (and if all went well).

Bumblebee was millions of years old, and would live for unpredictable millions more years (if all went well).

It wasn't a comparable proportion, but... it seemed that all he could do was love Sam while he had him, and remember him fondly once he was gone. That part would be easy, in its way.

Trying not to think of how breathlessly little time Sam had left would be harder.


End file.
